An Arty Festive Idea-Ology Collage

Be brave, cultivate kindness, use your wings, make a wish for peace, just believe - love and compassion will win in the end. There is always hope!

To create an arty festive collage, all you need are a few arty treasures and a surface to create upon. Collage can be used to make little ATCs, greeting cards, an art journal page or a large stretch canvas.

Begin by gathering your Idea-Ology ephemera and layers, collage papers (tissue, strips, collage squares, cards), any found objects, a favourite background stamp, any fabulous finds, scissors or craft knife, blending tools, Distress and Archival Inks, adhesive, washi tapes, black and white gel pens, Stickles glitter glue or Distress Snowfall Texture Paste (or both), and an art journal, artboard, canvas panel, stretched canvas or a sheet of paper. 

Actually, you don't need everything out on your table all at once - first choose a surface and some initial elements. I've used the Dylusions Creative Ledger 8x8 Journal and started by glueing down Christmas collage tissue (Tim's Idea-Ology from an old roll) and squares of Idea-Ology Collage Tiles using Distress Collage Medium applied with a wide flat brush.

I then used Distress Peeled Paint (green) Archival Ink to stamp diamond patterns and Black Soot Archival Ink to stamp seasonal words over the dried tissue and to fill in all the white space. When stamping over glued or painted layers, make sure everything is dry first or the ink doesn't print properly.

Next step is to rummage through your paper pieces and fabric scraps you wish to use. It is easy to choose, simply pick those that make you smile!

Roughly layer all your pieces onto the page, without glue, and once you're happy with where they are, glue them down. I use hinge clips (mini bulldog clips) to hold pieces down if they keep escaping from the page's edge.

Other pieces I've used are Idea-Ology Christmas Layers (poinsettia, holly, leaves, mistletoe, paper doll, little dog with sign, a  holly card, scraps of Backdrops), a fairy from an old calendar (top right) and two stitched words (joy, hope) that were made by my clever friend on her sewing machine. I also stamped large words (wish, peace) using Tim's stamp set "Handwritten Holidays no.3 (cms248) in black. 

To break up the look of my page, I scrunched up Tim's Idea-Ology Fringe trimmings however, while it looked fabulous, it isn't ideal for inside a book as it doesn't flatten once fluffed up. It does make fantastic fluff for a canvas or display projects and feels great to scrunch while drinking coffee and watching artwork dry!

To create a bit of interest around the little squares and cover up any gaps I'd left behind, I added strips of Dylusions Washi Tape. If your washi tape doesn't stick, use an adhesive. This style of divider could also be done using real stitching (by hand or machine if it is a loose sheet of paper), drawn (doodled) in black pen or printed using stamps.

I made some feathered friends out of Tim Holtz Thinlits "Silhouette Birds" and Distress Kraft Heavystock, giving them eyes with black and white gel pens. Each bird had their outer edges inked with Gathered Twigs Distress Ink and a foam blending tool before being glued to the page with Dylusions Glue Stick.

The last essential to add if creating art with fairies (or Christmas, birthdays, Halloween, Easter, I really don't need a reason for glitter! lol), is to add something sparkly! I've used Distress Snowfall Texture Paste to the wings, flowers and leaves, applied with a thin spatula (palette knife). I often use Ranger's Stickles glitter glue (as well) for extra sparkle.

I love Tim's Idea-Ology stickers, they always have so many ways to say what I am wanting to write but can't think of the words. Dina Wakley's Ledger Sheets are full of so things to think too. Tim's snarky stickers and Dyan's Dylusions Bigger Back Chat stickers make great laughter lines. Some of them give my eyes a good rolling over but most of them are buckets of fun :)

Dyan Reaveley's quote book is a fantastic idea too. She uses a Dylusions Dyalog (any book will do) and writes each quote in a different colour. I think this would be a grand new year's resolution, to start a quote book, so I'm going to do this, most definitely! Thank you Dyan!

My other thing I must do, is to spend time to cut up all Tim's Alphanumeric Thinlits and store each style in it's own little box so I have them ready to use always! Some in black, some in kraft, some in white.

Sometimes overthinking makes me procrastinate (more than usual) - thank goodness our fabulous favourite designers have bright ideas to help in our (my) time of chaos!

One last thing .... with collage, if you make a mistake (for instance, by peeling off something when it was almost dry), it is easy to fix by placing anything over the top. Only you will know it was there .... as far as I'm concerned, there is only one rule with collage, make sure everything is completely dry before you close the book!

Thanks so much for visiting my Art by Jenny Creative Space! I hope my chatter, artwork and photos has helped inspire you to be crafty too.

Happy Creative Days!
:)
Jenny